If you've lost an earring, or other small piece of jewellery in the carpet, stretch some tights over the hose and hoover the area. Just make sure you don't split the tights, or you'll be fishing hoover dust to find it again! 🙀

(Yes, I learned that one the hard way, I make mistakes so you don't have to! 😹).

Watching two guys on cctv practising their moves with kendo sticks. It was a train station, 8pm, bored.

They were practising feints, moves, finishers.

I remote in to the PA system "Use the Force, Luke!"

Kendo guys pause. Then return to their practice.

"Do or do not! There is no try!"

Okay, now I have them. They can't see the camera. They investigate the surrounds of the station where they're sitting. "There I am not!"

They find the ticketing machine. Investigate it. "In there, I do not exist!" Now they're looking in the trees, up every pole. I'm ten kilometers away laughing uproriously.

Finally, they see a camera on a pole "Found me you have! A great Jedi you will become!"

Have security camera's at my house. After putting them up the neighbor kids like to pretend horrible things happen on screen.

One got a realistic looking airsoft gun and pretended to shoot his friend who actually layed there for 20 minutes (ish) before his friend came back. They waved at the camera.

Later there was a girl, about 12, who joined them and they pretended to accost her on the street. She tries to pull out mad sick kung fu moves but it was obvious they were just copying ninja turtles. (Although probably not ninja turtles as I am f****n old.) It was obviously fake as they were laughing their a*ses off.

I'm not a great story teller, but the things I've seen...I'll try to share the most exciting, surprising, and meaningful experiences.


Preface: Trucking....it's routine. The same task, the same chair, the same wheel, the same job. But if you pay attention, it can be an adventure every day.


Most exciting: let's see...


-Lots of fire. I've probably personally saved people loads in damages just from calling 911. The craziest was this one time I was almost home. The sun was just barely down and I saw a truck headed the other way with something bright. There was a constant line of sparks, 4 feet high, flying from his back right tire (his right). I'd never seen so many sparks, as if he was doing it on purpose. As he passed me I could see that the sparks were now a solid wall of fire, several hundred feet long and about three feet high. I called 911 that second and told them to hurry because that fire had a head start. Figured I might have saved the firefighters a few seconds before the next call would have been in and hoped it had made the difference. Saw it three days later - they got there in time before it reached away from the highway.


-I've driven into storms that convince me I'm about to die... I mean like walls of storm, it took less than a minute to go from clear to "I can't see...I really can't see and I'm going 70 with a full load, in all likelihood I am about to either smash into a stopped car or manage to stop in time and get wrecked from behind."


-I've had to literally dodge other cars. Sometimes people make mistakes, or get enraged, or maybe take d***s, but I've had cars both unintentionally and intentionally try to hit me on the highway. You want an adrenaline rush, experience that. When you're trucking you're controlling something so powerful that you hold the lives of everyone around you. Can you imagine a 26 thousand pound truck hitting a 3 thousand pound car? I'm sure I've saved people's lives by keeping track of the big picture and dodging other cars in HEAVY traffic. Still scars me thinking about those times when I've been a fraction of a second from a national-news worthy wreck.


Most surprising:


-One homeless man chasing another in a dead sprint


-Once found a rolled car ON the highway at 3AM. A few people were there standing around it, and I asked them what was going on and offered my help. They said they had no clue, they had just seen the car blocking one lane and pulled over. The worst part was that we didn't see anyone associated with the car. We wanted to believe that they had fled the scene, but we were afraid that they might have been flung a couple hundred feet away somewhere out in the tall grass where we couldn't see. Never found out about that one.


-I occasionally pick up hitchhikers. Very interesting people. You want to have an interesting day? Find a hitchhiker. I usually do it when it's cold out (I can't stand the cold) and I've got enough room to pull over safely within a quarter mile of the guy. Most of them are very poor, but for different reasons. Some are on an adventure, like Jade. He said he was just traveling to experience life, man. We talked for two hours straight about life and about who we were and what we wanted. He said he was going to Mexico for some hippie commune where everyone's n**e and you just do d***s and love on each other. Some are on a mission, like my most recent rider. I can't remember his name, but he was headed to Houston Texas to pick up a disability check. He seemed pretty smart and hard-working. He was trying to help me with stuff our whole trip. But some of these guys, as you've heard, are crazy. I met one guy who seemed to have a half-dozen mental disorders (I have a B.S. degree in psychology) and I started to fear for my life. This guy told me I wouldn't believe him, but he was the leader of a secret Arian group that has 20 leaders that all E.S.P. to each other(like telepathy). He would try to explain by telling me to look at the next sign on the road, and then say, "mmm....mmm....yeah, you see? No? The next one, the next one you'll see!" I thought he really might try to k**l me, and I admit I was afraid...I can't try to fight somebody while I'm driving a truck on the highway.

Most meaningful and memorable:


-Sometimes it's the small stuff that you remember the most, like when a beautiful song comes on while you're driving into the most beautiful sunset you've seen in weeks. Or when you see a board on the road and you line up your tire to run over the edge of it and successfully flick it 15ft off the road. One of my favorite memories is just trying to watch Monsters Inc. on the 10in. monitor in the suburban next to me for a few minutes. But I do have a few more notable memories.


-I've driven in hilly country a couple times where I get to see beautiful fog. It builds up in the valleys and it's like a dream. The fog, much more than the storms can be actual walls. It's so cool to go from clear day to 50ft vision in about 1 second, and then instantly back to clear a few seconds later.


-I've had a guy on a motorcycle next to me practicing his wheelie for 2 minutes! Talk about nerve-racking. Really cool to watch though.


-Perhaps the most memorable experience I had was joining a caravan that was speeding for like an hour. If you've never done this, you always join up at the back and watch for the trade time. Usually around 10-15 miles. Then the front guy will drop back and the next person will lead for that same amount of time. Everyone takes an even time of leading, and everyone is less likely to get pulled over.


-I'm sure there's more, but I've said too much. There's really just too much to tell. If you've read this whole thing then you might consider trying for your CDL. There are loads of drivings jobs, even right now. It really just takes responsibility and concentration. Thanks for reading.

"I'm not a lawyer but I'm fairly certain that I could frame a dog for m****r".

I was having a really bad day and decided to leave work early. Midway through subway ride home I'm self-consumed and on the verge of tears when a man gets on with a boombox, a microphone and an unidentifiable black box. He then proceeds to serenade the train with the Michael Jackson song "Black or White." He starts dancing and holding up the microphone to random passengers to sign the chorus. The next thing you know a sing-along has begun and I can't stop laughing with the stranger sitting next to me.

For the grand finale he presses a button on the black box and BOOM! Bubble machine - bubbles everywhere.

He got off at the next stop.

After the Rally to Restore Sanity, caught a train to get lunch with some friends. Every car is packed, but the one we get on seems particularly boisterous.

An old man with a bible on his lap is spouting off about gays, and their detrimental effect on society. To cover up his malarkey, a guy in his full fatigues is leading the entire train in whatever song he can think of; 'Row Your Boat', 'Wheels on the Bus', '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. During '99 Bottles, to keep everyone singing, he starts doing a s******r dance for the old guy, to which the whole car goes crazy. It was loud, cramped, and beautiful. The old fella gets off at the next stop.

As everyone is basking in the afterglow of his perfectly human moment, the guy says rather directly "I ship out to Iraq on Monday." Silence fills the car.

We happened get off at the same stop he did. Every person who got off with us either shook his hand or gave him a hug.

Hope he came home safe.

May seem tame, but I sat beside a lady who read her book upside down for 15 minutes straight. Turned pages and everything.